


Clipped Wings

by svecounia



Category: Alegría - Cirque du Soleil
Genre: Gen, strong feelings about trapeze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25203883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svecounia/pseuds/svecounia
Summary: The Nymphs inherit a gift.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	Clipped Wings

"Does it hurt?"

Vesper gave a little sniff, neither amused nor annoyed. He dug his fingers deeper into the tight muscle above his shoulder blade. "No more than usual. You?"

Allegra shook her head as she stretched her arms overhead. Her bones creaked, dragged too long by gravity. She'd sat with the dull ache of it for so long that she hoped she'd forget a life without it, but the ease and freedom of flight still called its endless song on the wind. 

"Do you regret it?"

Beneath the arcing metal beams, the nymphs leaped and pirouetted. The edges of their translucent wings caught the light and bounced it back up to the Angels' shared perch in a dazzling burst of glitter. Allegra looked away but Vesper kept watching, his lips tight with longing. 

"No."

The nymphs would make better use of them. They already were. 

Allegra had known it from the moment she'd passed the blade through feather and bone, when Vesper had gripped her back so tightly she feared her spine would snap under his grief. She'd let them drop as he clung to her, unable to watch, and with a terrible sense of awe she'd admired the way his wings spiraled to the ground below like leaves on a gentle breeze. The best of him was so easily shorn. 

When she'd pressed the knife into his quaking hands he'd already begun to comfort her through his own tears, promising her it wasn't that bad, it wasn't too painful, she could endure it, all the while stroking her feathers, memorizing every contour and down, his eyes hidden against her neck. She'd closed her wings around him and cried with him. 

His hands had stopped shaking when they took hold of her shoulder. As the mangled feathers had fallen to the earth below they'd clutched each other, cold and shaking. Ruined. Bereft. Certain they'd done the right thing. 

He'd been right. She could endure it. Allegra got to her feet.

"Come on."

They swung down from their perch, equal weights on twin pendulums, and grazed the very top of the world. Back and forth they flew, over and over and over, pain and love in a constant push and pull, framed by a world to which they could never return and a world from which they'd be forever barred.

But beneath the invisible claws of that birdcage, the newly winged nymphs danced with a fire neither Angel could have predicted. They'd meant to gift freedom: the blessing of distance, detachment, and escape that had always held the Angels apart. An antidote to the world as it sickened.

The nymphs never flew. Instead they churned up the winds with a twirl or a gesture, laughing as the breeze scattered whatever had laid settled for too long. They were proud, they were playful. The world turned to watch them either to marvel or – slowly but surely – join the dance.

Carried on the nymphs' backs, freedom looked more like conviction. They wore it beautifully.

Allegra dug the balls of her feet into the bar beneath her and drove herself higher. The great empty expanse filled her lungs and the exhilaration of the unknown raced across her skin in a shimmering chill. It felt so much like love, this swooping back and forth. Familiar, dangerous, and impossibly wide. 

Breathless, she looked to Vesper. His eyes were alight with fear and fire in equal measure. The sun caught in his hair and cast him a blazing halo. 

They'd given no thought to the thrill of fighting gravity when they'd still had their wings. 

They climbed higher. They reached for more. And every time they swung back down, they saw their gift finding new life below.

The wind rushed past. They could almost feel the wind in their feathers.


End file.
